Classical prayer booklet republished

A new edition of a unique booklet entitled ‘Night prayers collected in Glangevlin’, first published more than 100 years ago to raise funds for the Gaeltacht College there, has been lovingly reproduced and will be launched this coming weekend.

The booklet has been re-edited by Irish scholar and lecturer Dr Nollaig O Muraile (University of Galway), and will be launched by Monsignor Liam Kelly (PP Kildallan), local priest and an historian in his own right, at Glan Hall directly after 11:30am Mass on Sunday, April 6.

Music and refreshments will also be served, and Mr O Muraile, who is one of the country's foremost Irish language experts, and who provided a foreword to the reprinted edition, is expected to speak.

‘Glan vernacular’

What makes this prayer booklet unique says Dr Brendan Scott, Cavan County Council's Historian in Residence, is that it incorporates prayers printed in English and in Irish with phonetic spelling for now defunct Southern Ulster dialect, or “Glan vernacular”.

“It's like no Irish I've ever learned,” says Dr Scott, who has made Glan his home.

“The story is, in 1921, there was a Gaeltacht College set up in Glan and, in order to raise money, they printed this little booklet, about the size of your iPhone, of prayers collected from the local area with the phonetic spelling,” explains Dr Scott.

“So you're able to read and it gives you a notion of the kind of Irish that was being spoken in Glan over 100 years ago, this South Ulster dialect. It's quite unusual. An interesting little book.”

Dr Scott believes that around 1,000 copies of the booklet were produced. Yet the only copy he has ever seen for himself is located under lock and key at the National Library.

“They sold out very quickly,” he says. “It's a book I've always been interested in. I've only ever seen one copy but I'm sure people have them. I'm certain that, after this, people will be coming up to me to show me they've had one tucked away in the attic or the back of a bookshelf some place. It's a lovely thing to have.”

The booklet and the Gaeltacht College were dedicated to a curate named Michael McLoughlin, based in Belturbet, who died in 1920 age 24 years. Members of Fr McLoughlin's family, some of whom now live in UK, will travel over for the publication of the booklet, which was supported by Cavan County Council.